I got a call from Dad last night. My grandmother is dying. He quit his job. Shit.

He moved on to the good news. The police visited him again. My dad rents a room in a house that sits alone on a road full of industrial parks. It's a freak of zoning. The house itself sports eight small rooms. The residents fit into two categories: middle-aged divorced bachelors and parolees. This is Dad's second time living there.

The first time he left because he had the worst room. He had to duck under a support beam and walk behind the basement water heater just to get to his door. He's 6'3". Combine that with a bourbon habit and you've got an angry drunk with a perpetually bruised forehead.

There was another factor in his first departure. The drunk in the adjacent basement room died. He was the type who would only leave the house to buy more booze. He would often urinate his pants instead of exiting his cave to go upstairs and use the commode. A filthy man. The other residents, including my father, became concerned when he didn't show his slack face for three days straight. His car was outside.

It took them a few hours but they finally found him dead in his closet, soaked in rum. I asked what had happened. Did he fall into the closet and break his neck? Alcohol poisoning? Prescription overdose? Malnourishment? Nobody knew. I never heard the autopsy results.

Dad moved back in a couple months ago. He'd been kicked out of one residence for rolling around naked in the public hallways. The one after that was dominated by a strange old woman who cooked raspberry pierogies and stank up the house with odd spices and the scent of dyed hair burning on a curling iron. Dad didn't like it, and he had to smoke outside. So he went back to the bachelor/parolee house and scored an upstairs room with a window.

Last Tuesday one of the parolees, Juan, attacked Jimmy, a bachelor. Noses were broken, choke holds were applied, people were thrown, and blood was spilled. The police were called. Juan was evicted and the police wouldn't let him back inside to get his things. Eventually they would arrest him for assault.

Juan called 911 to ask for different policemen. Surprisingly, this helped him none. Jimmy was mad because he'd done Juan's brakes for free the day before. Supposedly the attack was unprovoked. I like Jimmy. He shared some red wine and shrimp linguini alfredo last time I visited, two weeks ago.

Juan is a bipolar alcoholic. He tells a lot of dead baby jokes. Dad is glad he's gone. That's why he was glad to get a visit from the cops. I love my dad. We're going to go see Grandmother on Saturday. Afterwards we'll go get some dinner and play some chess matches.